A Seductive Proposition : The school voucher initiative would break the back of public education and create a two-class system of haves and have-nots. We cannot subsidize some of our children and ignore the rest.

Yet again, through the ballot box, we are about to create a society divided in two. Yet again, we are, with the best intentions, on the verge of dividing our people into the privileged and the not-so-privileged.

The last time we did it, in the name of tax relief, was through Proposition 13. That initiative created one class of homeowners whose property taxes have remained reasonable for more than a decade.

The other class includes recent buyers and wanna-bes who are carrying a much larger proportion of the tax burden.

On the ballot in November will be a proposition that would create two classes of students, one privileged and one not.

Proposition 13 had great appeal to the San Fernando Valley and was supported by a large number of our residents. The voucher initiative also has appeal.

Its backers promise tax relief as well as increased quality and greater efficiency through healthy competition. Do not be misled, however. Lurking behind their assurances is the specter of a two-class system.

The privileged can walk away from the public schools with a check for about $2,100, leaving behind students who will suffer a school system which has been deeply wounded--sapped of strength, its competitive edge blunted, pauperized.

Those who can supplement that check with their own funds will find places in private schools. Those who cannot will find the offer of $2,100 a hollow gesture.

Proposition 98 was passed by the electorate in 1988 to assure us that about 40% of the state’s budget would consistently be spent for K-14 education. Now, that money would have to be divided between two “school systems,” one to subsidize the educationally mobile and the other for the educationally place-bound.

The so-called school choice initiative, under a guise of granting power to parents, would provide that all children have made available to them a voucher worth half the cost of a public education.

In rough terms, this would amount to $2,100 at the current cost. That sum could be used in any private school.

The actual loss of funds, however, to the public schools would be significantly greater. Analysts in Sacramento estimate that the real loss to the public schools for each voucher could be as high as $6,300.

First, the child will no longer be in the classroom. That will mean that the school will no longer earn the average daily attendance allowance of $4,200.

Moreover, the amount in the state school budget from which the per-pupil allotment is taken will be reduced by the amount going to vouchers--$2,100 per child in private schools.

Finally, the Legislature might be tempted to withdraw the other half of the cost of education from the state budget, cutting the full $4,200.

Which children will exercise their “choice”? Which pupils will be most welcome in the private schools? Certainly, the intellectually gifted and the athletic stars.

Least likely to be received with open arms will be the children who are the most challenging to teachers. These include children with learning difficulties, physical disabilities and other conditions which require them to have more intensive and diversified types of instruction.

Who will be willing to take these children? They cost a lot more to educate. And although the private schools under the voucher initiative may not discriminate because of “race, ethnicity, color or national origin,” there is nothing in the proposal that prohibits a school from discriminating on the basis of physical or mental condition, educational need or even athletic ability.

Nor does the voucher plan prohibit discrimination on the basis of religion or gender, world view or philosophy.

Will we end up with a Balkanized system? Will children be segregated by race, religion or ability? Will the children who are left remain in a system which is anemic and impotent, no longer able to perform the function for which it was established in the last century? How will we create an informed, productive electorate to help our nation to remain strong?

We will end up with one group of children financed with an entitlement that encourages flight from the public schools into homogeneous enclaves, protected and insulated from their equally deserving brothers and sisters who cannot afford that option.

We cannot abandon public education. We cannot subsidize a portion of our children and ignore the rest. There has got to be a better way.

The challenge next November is to reject this attractive but insidious attack on public education.

We need to renew our commitment to the only institution which can bring a healthy turnabout--our public education system--and spend our energy and commitment on making it worthy and productive.

Are institutions responsive to children’s needs and to our future? Two systems will not work.